


Six Little Steps

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M, Parent AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 15:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10642626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: The Doctor, Jamie, and two small surprises.





	

**Author's Note:**

> for [keatulie](keatulie.tumblr.com).

Jamie glanced towards the doors nervously. There was no sign of Victoria, but he lowered his voice anyway. “I cannae read that.”

“Why no?” The Doctor attempted to push the book into his hands again, but Jamie drew back. “Would you like me to find you another book, then?” The disappointment on his face filled Jamie with regret. “I thought you’d like this once.”

At last, Jamie let the Doctor hand him the book, tracing over the swirling kelpie on the cover with one finger, looking down at it sadly. “I’m no’ good enough to read it.”

“Nonsense.” The Doctor gestured to the papers in front of them, lines and lines of his own scrawly handwriting trailed by Jamie’s more tentative letters. “You’re perfectly good enough.”

“I cannae do it,” Jamie insisted. “Aye, I can – I can do this, but -” He let the thin volume fall open, the prospect of pages and bindings and printed ink daunting enough for the words to seem incomprehensible. Books had always been precious things, something he had never been allowed to touch, and even with thousands of them filling the TARDIS library, Jamie could not shake the feeling that there was something forbidden about them.

“It’s no different,” the Doctor coaxed, but Jamie shoved the book away across the table. “Would it help if I read with you? Or – or I could go away, and leave you to -” He wrung his hands together nervously. “Oh, I don’t seem to be much good at this, do I? Goodness knows how I’d be with children.”

_You’re perfectly good at this_ , Jamie wanted to say. _I’m the one who cannae do it_. But his mind refused to cooperate, too caught up on the Doctor’s last few words. “Children?” he repeated.

“Yes, well, you know, if we – if I were ever to...” The Doctor trailed off, unable to meet Jamie’s eyes.

Fighting a smile, Jamie nudged the Doctor’s arm. “Aye, well, maybe we can think about it.” He chuckled at the mortification on the Doctor’s face. “After all this, mind,” he added, gesturing towards the papers in front of them. “We cannae have the bairn growing up and being better than their father at reading!”

“Why not?” the Doctor asked, his embarrassment shifting to confusion in a heartbeat. “People must have raised children without being able to read themselves all the time, when you were growing up.”

“Aye, but that’s different, isn’t it?” The Doctor simply blinked at him, and Jamie sighed. “You’re so clever, an’ - an’ I’m not, and -”

“Oh, so that’s what all this is about.” The Doctor wrapped an arm securely around Jamie’s shoulders. “You’re more than clever enough to read that book, Jamie. And there’s more important things than being clever, anyway. I’m sure you’d make a wonderful father.” He hesitated for a moment, as if gathering courage for his next words. “Jamie, there’s, ah, something I’ve been meaning to tell you…”

* * *

Jamie turned the book over in his hands curiously. Surely the Doctor had left it behind when he had finished his turn watching the loom – but Jamie had not seen him reading it. Once more, he traced his fingers over the familiar cover. As absent-minded as the Doctor could be, something told him that this was deliberate. He sat down, still staring at the book, wondering what the Doctor had meant by it. A children’s book.

He smiled fondly, shaking his head. “Wee daftie.” The loom clunked and wheezed, and he frowned, unsure if it was meant to be making those noises. He squinted at the graphs on the scanner, but they meant nothing to him. “Wheesht ye, I’m here.” Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but he could have sworn the loom quietened at the sound of his voice. “Aye, I’ll read to ye, then. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, wee one?”

Tentatively, he opened the book.

* * *

“And when our spaceship lands – oh!” A wide smile spread across the Doctor’s face. “Jamie!”

“Aye, Doctor?” Jamie was across the room in a moment, gripping the Doctor’s arm concernedly. “What’s wrong?”

The Doctor took his hands, still beaming. “Do you mind if I -” Jamie shook his head, and the Doctor closed his eyes. The shock of the unfamiliar telepathic connection nearly made him flinch away, but the Doctor tightened his grip, easing him into it as much as he was able. For a moment, Jamie enjoyed the contact, the reassuring flow of the Doctor’s thoughts around his own. He only realised that something was strange when the Doctor gently directed him towards it, another thread leading away from their bond. An odd pulsing was coming from it, like a heartbeat.

_What’s that?_

_Just wait._

Jamie was about to ask exactly what he was waiting for when he felt it, a jolt like something tugging on the thread, followed by a wave of delight from the Doctor.

“Aye, but what was it?” he asked, pulling away from the bond, but tightening his hold on the Doctor’s hands. A small suspicion was nagging at the back of his mind, some instinctive understanding of what he had just felt.

“Our child, Jamie!”

The confirmation flooded Jamie with warmth, and he could not help but beam back at the Doctor. “You’re linked to them?”

“Well, yes.” The Doctor twisted his hands together almost nervously. “It was quite a shock, but, ah – it’s rather nice. I’ve never felt them do that before.”

Victoria cleared her throat. “Doctor, you did say we were about to crash into an asteroid...”

“Oh! Yes, you’re quite right, Victoria.”

* * *

“Doctor?” Jamie prodded at the Doctor’s side cautiously, as if disturbing a wild animal. The Doctor simply groaned and rolled over onto his stomach. “Doctor, Victoria says it’s ten o’clock.”

“We live in a time machine, Jamie,” the Doctor mumbled. “Ten o’clock can be whenever I say it is.” His eyes drifted closed lazily, reminding Jamie of a sleepy cat, unworried and content. The snore that followed was almost comically loud.

“Doctor,” Jamie repeated. “Ye never sleep for this long.” A sudden thought struck him. “Are ye ill?”

“I’m just tired, that’s all.” The Doctor rolled back over to blink up at Jamie. “I’ve got a headache.”

In all his time travelling with the Doctor, Jamie had never known him to complain of a headache like this – or, he realised after a moment, to get sick at all. Whatever it was, it had to be serious to affect him like this, surely. “Are ye sure you’re alright?”

“I’m perfectly fine!” The Doctor’s sudden irritability startled him. What if this was perfectly normal, and he had interrupted something important? It occurred to him that normal for the Doctor was completely alien for him. “Don’t fuss me, Jamie.” He huffed, as if Jamie’s worry was a great inconvenience to him. “Well, I’m as fine as I can be, with the racket going on up here.”

“Wh – racket?” Jamie reached up to brush the Doctor’s hair away from his forehead. “What do ye mean – oh.”

“Yes.” The Doctor frowned at him, the furrow in his brow only deepening as Jamie started to laugh. “Your child is certainly causing me a lot of trouble!”

At last, Jamie managed to stifle his laughter. “Och, here.” He took the Doctor’s hands in his own, closing his eyes and feeling for the bond with the loomling. _Let’s see if we cannae make it easier for you, eh?_

_Now, Jamie, I don’t think – oh._ He felt the Doctor’s relief as a wave of pressure hit him, an odd shifting sensation. _That is better._

_Aye, well, it is my child, after all._

_They’ve not been letting me forget it._

* * *

The sound of a panicked shout from the Doctor brought Jamie and Victoria running to the loom, glancing at each other briefly before Jamie forced the door open. He saw no sign of the Doctor, his chair empty. Even worse, the loom was grinding, screeching, almost like the TARDIS landing, and Jamie’s link to the loomling was tugging almost painfully.

“Doctor?” he called out nervously. “Doctor, are ye there?”

A quiet whimper drew his gaze to the far wall, and at last he saw the Doctor, sat in the shadows with his fingers pressed to his temples. “Doctor!” Jamie rushed to his side, crouching next to him, hands roaming over his shoulders, his arms, reaching up to gently touch his face. He looked back at the loom. “What went wrong?”

The Doctor seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, fighting to get the words out, before finally managing “nothing.”

“Nothing?” Jamie echoed. “How can nothing be wrong?”

“This is perfectly – oh!” The Doctor shook himself, smiling reassuringly up at Jamie. “Perfectly normal. The loom’s finishing, that’s all. It just requires some mental power to get the baby’s mind self-sufficient. On – well, where I’m from, they have people who are trained for this sort of thing, but I’m afraid I was never a very good student of telepathy. This isn’t going to be pleasant.”

“Finishing?” Jamie stared at him. “But it’s only been -”

“Yes, well, it works a lot faster than a human might expect.” The Doctor’s strained smile contorted into a grimace without warning, and Jamie gathered him closer.

“It’s going tae be alright,” he soothed. “I’ve got you.”

“I’m quite aware of that, Jamie,” came the muffled, irritated reply. Despite himself, Jamie chuckled, ruffling the Doctor’s hair affectionately.

He lost track of how long they sat there, the Doctor held securely in his arms. Victoria had brought them cups of tea, but they had long since grown cold, untouched. Somewhere along the way, the Doctor’s hand had found his, and Jamie tried his best to boost his own link to the baby, to take some of the pain away, as he had done so many times before. He could feel the bond twisting, fraying, sapping energy, the recoil of it like gunfire. At last, the loom’s clanking quietened, and there was a soft bump of something sliding out of it. He gave the Doctor’s hair one last calming stroke with his free hand, then approached the loom hesitantly.

An odd chute had opened up in the machine, and at the end lay the child, its – no, _her_ face scrunched up in displeasure. Quickly, efficiently, Jamie wrapped her up in one of the cloths the Doctor had insisted they keep on hand months before, and cradled her for the first time. She seemed a little too solid to be a newborn, too big, a shock of messy black hair already falling in her eyes, but still so fragile. For a moment, he smiled down at her, enchanted, before hurrying over to the Doctor and holding her out to him.

“Hmm?” The Doctor rubbed his eyes blearily. “Oh.”

“Aye.” Jamie let the Doctor take her from him, watching her tiny fingers wrap almost delicately around one of his.

“Anne?” the Doctor asked, not looking up from studying her. “That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Anne.” Jamie reached out to gently tap her nose. “Our wee Annag.”

“Yes, you like that, don’t you?” Anne simply hiccuped in response. Without warning, the Doctor froze. “Jamie – something’s happening.”

In unison, they turned to look at the loom as the noises started again.

* * *

Jamie scanned the museum’s crowd anxiously, then sighed, realising the futility of looking over the tops of people’s heads. It would be more useful to get down on all fours and look between their legs. Susan grasped his hand dutifully, looking up at him with one finger pressed to her bottom lip as if in thought. Had he not been so worried, Jamie would have smiled at her resemblance to the Doctor.

“Where’s your sister got to, eh?” he asked. Susan shrugged, the finger slipping into her mouth absently. “Anne! Anne, if ye don’t – oh.” Anne had appeared as if out of nowhere, tugging on the hem of his kilt and beaming. “Where’ve ye been?”

“I found a rocket.”

“Just like your dad,” Jamie complained, but his expression was one of fondness. “Did ye see him?” Anne shook her head, and Jamie let go of Susan’s hand to pick her up. “Och, you’re getting heavy. Now, Anne, ye know you’re not supposed to wander off.”

Anne nodded solemnly, her expression earnest, but Jamie knew that the moment he let her out of his sight, she would be off again. “ _Tha mi duilich, athair._ ”

“That’s my wee lassie.” Jamie set her down again, taking her hand and reaching for Susan’s. “Susan? Och, not you too -” He sighed. “Forever chasing around after ye three, aren’t I? Come on, let’s go and find them.”

* * *

“ _Athair! Athair!_ ” Anne trotted clumsily along the corridor, cradling something in her hands. She tripped, and it rolled away from her with a clatter. Before Jamie could help her up, she was scrambling towards it, turning it over in her hands, checking for damage. The movement seemed eerily familiar. “ _Athair_ , look what I made.”

She held up a tangled mess of wires and boxes. As she did so, a crash echoed from the room she had emerged from, accompanied by a joyful shout from the Doctor and a giggle from Susan. Jamie glared at the doorway, making a mental note to discuss appropriate playthings later. Beaming proudly, Anne touched two of the wires together, making a wee lightbulb glow and drawing Jamie’s attention back towards her. “See?”

“Aye, that’s very clever.” Jamie ruffled her hair, and she smiled up at him, suddenly looking like a tiny duplicate of the Doctor. “Did ye show your father?” She nodded eagerly. “And what did he say?”

“He said I was like a – a scientist.” Anne’s smile grew wider. “I want to be a scientist.”

“Do ye?” Jamie reached down to pick her up, settling her securely against his hip, and headed towards the door, sighing at the tell-tale hiss of gas.

“Can I be a scientist when I grow up?”

“Ye can be whatever ye want, my wee lassie.”


End file.
